But while most radio hosts sought to stay clear of political partisanship, Rush Limbaugh said Monday afternoon on his show that seeking to connect the shooting with radio talk shows — which are dominated by conservatives — was part of a Democratic strategy.

“It is our right and our duty to criticize the people who have put the fate of our country in peril,” Mr. Limbaugh said.

surprise, surprise, surprise.

courage campaign is calling on darrell issa (who has vowed to spend all day, every day, investigating the obama administration as the new chair of the house investigations and oversight committee) to investigate the relationship between violent political discourse and violence....any bets on how high up _that_ will be on his agenda?_________________aka: neverscared!

the local sheriff says five people have been killed and the Congresswoman and seven others are still alive, although in grave condition, as of this moment, so, grains of salt all around, but still, holy shit, a Congresswoman just got shot

and for extra bonus points, take a look at the fourth name down on this list

Jan 8th 2011 ricoche

Last edited by Otoh on Mon Jan 10, 2011 9:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

Are you saying Tat is the second suspect?_________________A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

It's unfortunate that this became a debate about whether talk radio incited this person to violence, because that's a strawman of the highest order and allows this discussion to be killed without getting to the heart of the matter. Whether Loughner listened to any particular radio show is irrelevant. What is relevant is the level of political discourse at all levels. We should worry when we demonize one another for the sake of elections, and we should not be surprised when such vitriol begins to shape interactions beyond political discourse.

The argument of the radio show hosts is that they can't be held responsible for the actions of a mentally disturbed person - which is true, in a strict sense. We're all to blame, however, for the evolution of political discourse from being about differences of opinion to being about the fight of good against evil. Yes, Reaganites championed the idea that the Christian right had the lease on morality in America, but to leave it at that is to say that the left had no ability to influence the discussion. At some point we have to move beyond saying, "that event right there was not my fault," and say, "we have all played a role in the evolution of how politics is discussed, and as such we all share some level of culpability if that evolution leads to violence of any kind."

When the left bought into the simple idea that if I can get voters to fear or hate you then they will vote for me no matter what idiotic thing comes out of my mouth, whether they did so reluctantly, or in response to the right, they still did their part to advance the idea that those who disagree with us are dumb, or dangerous, or evil. This is not to say that I even agree that this was the position in which those on the left found themselves, that they didn't immediately recognize the expediency of these positions and sell their souls for simplicity on the spot. My point is that, regardless of how it came to be, both sides carry the blame together for how we now approach such picayune concepts as taxation on tire sales to out-of-state residents as the front line in the fight against evil itself. So we need to stop making this about the left versus the right, and start talking about the American people as a whole.

So, that's my deal. I think we all created Jared Loughner, political assassin, together, by dint of our incessant need to denigrate the other side. Acts of violence become inevitable as we become awash in violent rhetoric. Eventually the novelty of threatening innuendo wears off and it seems natural to threaten revolution, or civil war, or terrorism. Then we get into echo chambers - liberal and conservative bastions where all we hear is our own ideas repeated back to us - and these threats begin to sound rational, even likely. Naturally, most people don't ever act out in violence, but they propagate the mindset until it infects the next Jared Loughner. By then the direct influence is gone, it's simply the ripple effect of thousands of angry people on both sides splashing violent rhetoric against a fragile mind. We can all claim it wasn't our fault, exactly, and move on.

Ugh._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

The Committee to Stop Gun Violence has prepared a compendium of sources of "violent" or "insurrectionist" political rhetoric in the past two and a half years. It is here. Let's stipulate that there could have been a tilt, conscious or unconscious, in selection of items for the list. Still, it is stunning in its totality. It is also hard to imagine coming up with a comparable list from "the other side."

One item (and photo) from a list that is many screenfuls long:

>>August 11, 2009--William Kostric is filmed openly carrying a handgun outside of President Obama's health care reform town hall meeting in New Hampshire. Kostric holds a sign that reads, "IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY!" a reference to the following Thomas Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."<<

Please review this as a basic background document on considering the possibility that a tone of extremist rhetoric could be related to outbursts of political violence -- or, more constructively, whether one response to this tragedy should be deliberate cooling down of political talk.

It's unfortunate that this became a debate about whether talk radio incited this person to violence, because that's a strawman of the highest order and allows this discussion to be killed without getting to the heart of the matter. Whether Loughner listened to any particular radio show is irrelevant. What is relevant is the level of political discourse at all levels. We should worry when we demonize one another for the sake of elections, and we should not be surprised when such vitriol begins to shape interactions beyond political discourse.

The argument of the radio show hosts is that they can't be held responsible for the actions of a mentally disturbed person - which is true, in a strict sense. We're all to blame, however, for the evolution of political discourse from being about differences of opinion to being about the fight of good against evil. Yes, Reaganites championed the idea that the Christian right had the lease on morality in America, but to leave it at that is to say that the left had no ability to influence the discussion. At some point we have to move beyond saying, "that event right there was not my fault," and say, "we have all played a role in the evolution of how politics is discussed, and as such we all share some level of culpability if that evolution leads to violence of any kind."

When the left bought into the simple idea that if I can get voters to fear or hate you then they will vote for me no matter what idiotic thing comes out of my mouth, whether they did so reluctantly, or in response to the right, they still did their part to advance the idea that those who disagree with us are dumb, or dangerous, or evil. This is not to say that I even agree that this was the position in which those on the left found themselves, that they didn't immediately recognize the expediency of these positions and sell their souls for simplicity on the spot. My point is that, regardless of how it came to be, both sides carry the blame together for how we now approach such picayune concepts as taxation on tire sales to out-of-state residents as the front line in the fight against evil itself. So we need to stop making this about the left versus the right, and start talking about the American people as a whole.

So, that's my deal. I think we all created Jared Loughner, political assassin, together, by dint of our incessant need to denigrate the other side. Acts of violence become inevitable as we become awash in violent rhetoric. Eventually the novelty of threatening innuendo wears off and it seems natural to threaten revolution, or civil war, or terrorism. Then we get into echo chambers - liberal and conservative bastions where all we hear is our own ideas repeated back to us - and these threats begin to sound rational, even likely. Naturally, most people don't ever act out in violence, but they propagate the mindset until it infects the next Jared Loughner. By then the direct influence is gone, it's simply the ripple effect of thousands of angry people on both sides splashing violent rhetoric against a fragile mind. We can all claim it wasn't our fault, exactly, and move on.

Ugh.

Seriously though, acting like the blame doesn't fall on the republicans for creating this shit is silly. Speaking in broderisms about how both sides are to blame is some sort of holier-than-thou bullshit.

Bill Maher is fucking right. I don't like to admit it but he's right. One party has made violent, insane bullshit their platform. The bullshit isn't fringe-elements getting more attention, it's that one party has basically fucking embraced their fringe as their new vision._________________

This is a huge problem with the American liberals. They're just too damn decent.

I've seen it happen in the Something Awful thread about the assassination. The first x pages were filled with rage and "goddamn Tea Party", before the resident right-wingers showed up. They quickly realised that their cries of "GBS echo chamber" weren't doing much good, so they tried something different.

They started appealing to the liberals' decency, claiming that it was wrong to exploit such a tragedy and that we should wait for more details before attacking the right. And after a while, it started working. I swear I saw the words "national unity" multiple times.

Meanwhile. Not to mention Fox News asking an interviewee if Giffords provoked the assassin, Rush Limbaugh uses the situation to score some points against "The Left" and the Tea Party froths at the mouth.

Then the liberals started making speeches like Dogen made. And they're beautiful, they're decent, they gracefully land on the moral high ground. Problem is, by being so decent, they're letting the right - and especially the Tea Party and Palin and such - off easy. You're giving away the narrative.

Just watch. The right is probably almost done creating a narrative for their base to follow and pretty soon, they'll start preaching to the world._________________attitude of a street punk, only cutting selected words out of context to get onself excuse to let one's dirty mouth loose

It's unfortunate that this became a debate about whether talk radio incited this person to violence, because that's a strawman of the highest order and allows this discussion to be killed without getting to the heart of the matter. Whether Loughner listened to any particular radio show is irrelevant. What is relevant is the level of political discourse at all levels. We should worry when we demonize one another for the sake of elections, and we should not be surprised when such vitriol begins to shape interactions beyond political discourse.

The argument of the radio show hosts is that they can't be held responsible for the actions of a mentally disturbed person - which is true, in a strict sense. We're all to blame, however, for the evolution of political discourse from being about differences of opinion to being about the fight of good against evil. Yes, Reaganites championed the idea that the Christian right had the lease on morality in America, but to leave it at that is to say that the left had no ability to influence the discussion. At some point we have to move beyond saying, "that event right there was not my fault," and say, "we have all played a role in the evolution of how politics is discussed, and as such we all share some level of culpability if that evolution leads to violence of any kind."

When the left bought into the simple idea that if I can get voters to fear or hate you then they will vote for me no matter what idiotic thing comes out of my mouth, whether they did so reluctantly, or in response to the right, they still did their part to advance the idea that those who disagree with us are dumb, or dangerous, or evil. This is not to say that I even agree that this was the position in which those on the left found themselves, that they didn't immediately recognize the expediency of these positions and sell their souls for simplicity on the spot. My point is that, regardless of how it came to be, both sides carry the blame together for how we now approach such picayune concepts as taxation on tire sales to out-of-state residents as the front line in the fight against evil itself. So we need to stop making this about the left versus the right, and start talking about the American people as a whole.

So, that's my deal. I think we all created Jared Loughner, political assassin, together, by dint of our incessant need to denigrate the other side. Acts of violence become inevitable as we become awash in violent rhetoric. Eventually the novelty of threatening innuendo wears off and it seems natural to threaten revolution, or civil war, or terrorism. Then we get into echo chambers - liberal and conservative bastions where all we hear is our own ideas repeated back to us - and these threats begin to sound rational, even likely. Naturally, most people don't ever act out in violence, but they propagate the mindset until it infects the next Jared Loughner. By then the direct influence is gone, it's simply the ripple effect of thousands of angry people on both sides splashing violent rhetoric against a fragile mind. We can all claim it wasn't our fault, exactly, and move on.

Ugh.

Seriously though, acting like the blame doesn't fall on the republicans for creating this shit is silly. Speaking in broderisms about how both sides are to blame is some sort of holier-than-thou bullshit.

Bill Maher is fucking right. I don't like to admit it but he's right. One party has made violent, insane bullshit their platform. The bullshit isn't fringe-elements getting more attention, it's that one party has basically fucking embraced their fringe as their new vision.

My new pet conspiracy theory is that No Child Left Behind was really implemented in order to produce a new batch of mentally stunted kids, adolescents, and young adults ready to be brainwashed by right-wing rhetoric._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

My new pet conspiracy theory is that No Child Left Behind was really implemented in order to produce a new batch of mentally stunted kids, adolescents, and young adults ready to be brainwashed by right-wing rhetoric.

It's unfortunate that this became a debate about whether talk radio incited this person to violence, because that's a strawman of the highest order and allows this discussion to be killed without getting to the heart of the matter. Whether Loughner listened to any particular radio show is irrelevant. What is relevant is the level of political discourse at all levels. We should worry when we demonize one another for the sake of elections, and we should not be surprised when such vitriol begins to shape interactions beyond political discourse.

The argument of the radio show hosts is that they can't be held responsible for the actions of a mentally disturbed person - which is true, in a strict sense. We're all to blame, however, for the evolution of political discourse from being about differences of opinion to being about the fight of good against evil. Yes, Reaganites championed the idea that the Christian right had the lease on morality in America, but to leave it at that is to say that the left had no ability to influence the discussion. At some point we have to move beyond saying, "that event right there was not my fault," and say, "we have all played a role in the evolution of how politics is discussed, and as such we all share some level of culpability if that evolution leads to violence of any kind."

When the left bought into the simple idea that if I can get voters to fear or hate you then they will vote for me no matter what idiotic thing comes out of my mouth, whether they did so reluctantly, or in response to the right, they still did their part to advance the idea that those who disagree with us are dumb, or dangerous, or evil. This is not to say that I even agree that this was the position in which those on the left found themselves, that they didn't immediately recognize the expediency of these positions and sell their souls for simplicity on the spot. My point is that, regardless of how it came to be, both sides carry the blame together for how we now approach such picayune concepts as taxation on tire sales to out-of-state residents as the front line in the fight against evil itself. So we need to stop making this about the left versus the right, and start talking about the American people as a whole.

So, that's my deal. I think we all created Jared Loughner, political assassin, together, by dint of our incessant need to denigrate the other side. Acts of violence become inevitable as we become awash in violent rhetoric. Eventually the novelty of threatening innuendo wears off and it seems natural to threaten revolution, or civil war, or terrorism. Then we get into echo chambers - liberal and conservative bastions where all we hear is our own ideas repeated back to us - and these threats begin to sound rational, even likely. Naturally, most people don't ever act out in violence, but they propagate the mindset until it infects the next Jared Loughner. By then the direct influence is gone, it's simply the ripple effect of thousands of angry people on both sides splashing violent rhetoric against a fragile mind. We can all claim it wasn't our fault, exactly, and move on.

Ugh.

Seriously though, acting like the blame doesn't fall on the republicans for creating this shit is silly. Speaking in broderisms about how both sides are to blame is some sort of holier-than-thou bullshit.

Bill Maher is fucking right. I don't like to admit it but he's right. One party has made violent, insane bullshit their platform. The bullshit isn't fringe-elements getting more attention, it's that one party has basically fucking embraced their fringe as their new vision.

I think Dogen's post was beautiful, but on the whole I agree with Snorri. You can accept culpability, but there comes a point when you have to concede equal responsibility. If the right did more in the same vein the left is doing (or trying to do), endorse gay rights, gay marriage, public option, etc, there'd be a case. As it is now, that's just beating yourself up for the benefit of others.